Category Archive

Today’s algebra lesson was an extension of the proportions/non-proportional pattern poster that I did with my students last class. First we watched a brainpop video about slopes and rates of change which I linked in my Notebook file. (Of course, this included a brief pause and “transparent layer” illustration of rise over run.) Next we had a brief refresher about the slope intercept form of an equation, followed by student demonstrations about finding the “m” and the “b” in a table and graph. The next page featured a scenerio that I created based on my own childhood experiences of “rising” …

The picture at the left depicts my students in the 2nd to final stage of their activity on developing and understanding basic linear equations. Adapted from Creative Publication’s Algebra Thinking: First Experiences, students were given a set of patterns pictorially, verbally and in a chart. Students then work in pairs to come up with the next few stages of the pattern, the equation and a graph. Finally, students were asked to determine whether each pattern was proportional or non-proportional. Where does SMART come in? The activity is done entirely using cm cubes, so basically using the SMARTboard, students can choose to …

For the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to mix up the way that I use certain teaching strategies along with SMART Response. I love doing Think-Pair-Share…but I also love to include SMART Response in our learning time. What I came up with is Think Travel Share Respond. Here is how it works… Think Students have 2-3 minutes to “think” to themselves and work out their assigned problem using any method that works. During this time, I do not answer questions and students cannot help each other. Travel & Share Students are to get up and walk to a person or …

Welcome Back to Another AMAZING Year! Today started another school year for many of us. During training last week, we learned to incorporate Thinking Maps into our day to day activities and have now adopted Thinking Maps as a resource campus wide. Thinking maps are visual learning tools, which are very different than concept maps. What I love about them is that they are not subject specific so a certain map can in essence be used for any subject being taught. Our freshman came from our Junior High having already been exposed to Thinking Maps. So, when I said that we …

Today I started a project with my students. Their task was to pair up and record a video showing how to solve a system of equations using any method. Students were required to choose one of their homework problems and write a script explaining how to solve. To make the video, one person did the writing, while the other did the talking. Below is the video that made this project come to life.

The following post was contributed by Daphne Pesina, High School English Teacher: When I began my teaching career 14 years ago, I knew I could do two things: entertain my captive audience and teach kids what they needed to know to pass the state standardized test. At the end of each year I survey the students to get some feedback on how I can improve as a teacher. I reflect on my performance and abilities as a teacher because I want to be relevant and connect with my students. I find that my relevancy in lesson planning is directly related …

I’m always looking for ideas to add interactivity to my SMARTboard lessons. The easiest and fastest way is to utilize the Lesson Activity Toolkit, located in Notebook 10 Software. I have two favorite activities in the Lesson Activity Toolkit. One is called sentence arrange and the other is called image select. Both can be customized in less than 10 minutes and ready for your students to use, no matter what subject you teach.

About a month ago, I started using my now discontinued Flip Cam in my classroom to really analyze how my students collaborated. While, I wasn’t amazed at the results, I still get chills watching as my students work with and teach each other…especially when it produces the assessment results that the following encounter produced.